“Behold, I Went to Hunt Beasts in the Forest”: An Addendum on Enos, Esau, and the Symbolic Geography of Seir
Author: Matthew L. Bowen
Date: 2024-10-31T23:08:19+00:00
Keywords: Book of Mormon;Enos;Esau;Jacob;Mount Seir;Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;LDS;Mormonism;Enos 1:3-4
Description: Abstract: Enos’s use of the onomastic wordplay in the Jacob and Esau cycle enables him to meaningfully allude to the symbolic geography of those stories and incorporate it into his New World setting (e.g., allusions to the river Jabbok and Peniel/Penuel, the site of Jacob’s “wrestle” with the divine “man”). A third instance of this type of allusion occurs with Enos’s recollection that he “went to hunt beasts in the forest[s]” (Enos 1:3), which appears to subtly allude to Mount Seir, the forested hill country in the land of Edom inhabited by Esau and his descendants.
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“Behold, I Went to Hunt Beasts in the Forest”: An Addendum on Enos, Esau, and the Symbolic Geography of Seir

Matthew L. Bowen

Abstract: Enos’s use of the onomastic wordplay in the Jacob and Esau cycle enables him to meaningfully allude to the symbolic geography of those stories and incorporate it into his New World setting (e.g., allusions to the river Jabbok and Peniel/Penuel, the site of Jacob’s “wrestle” with the divine “man”). A third instance of this type of allusion occurs with Enos’s recollection that he “went to hunt beasts in the forest[s]” (Enos 1:3), which appears to subtly allude to Mount Seir, the forested hill country in the land of Edom inhabited by Esau and his descendants.

Three earlier studies, one by John Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper and two of my own, have attempted to detail the subtle and intricate ways in which Enos “likened” the Jacob-Esau cycle to himself in writing his autobiography.1 Tvedtnes and Roper demonstrated clear intertextual links between the Jacob-Esau cycle and Enos’s writings. My studies focused more specifically on Enos’s autobiographical adaptations of Hebrew names and words. For example, I examined “wrestle” (wayyēʾābēq, Genesis 32:24) as wordplay on the name Jacob (yaʿăqōb), the name of the patriarch and Enos’s own father, and the river Jabbok (yabbōq), near the site of Jacob’s “wrestle.” Also, I examined Enos’s use of his own name ʾĕnôš (“man”) as a poetic2 synonym of, and allusion to, the divine “man” (ʾîš) who “wrestled” with Jacob. I further suggested Enos, as “man,” echoes the God and “men” (ʾănāšîm) with whom Jacob “struggled” or “had power” (Genesis 32:28). Notably, ʾănāšîm is the common plural of both ʾîš and ʾĕnôš. Moreover, I noted that Enos as “man,” identifies him with both Jacob and Esau who are both characterized as an ʾîš of starkly contrasting kinds (see also further below). What follows here will be a short addendum to that previous work.

Enos, the son of Jacob, likens his autobiography to the story of his patriarchal ancestor Jacob and Jacob’s brother Esau in telling how he received the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ into his life (Enos 1:1–8). He then adds how he later procured covenant blessings and promises for his kindred (the Nephites, Enos 1:9–10) and ultimately for his estranged “brethren,” the Lamanites, who had become his enemies (Enos 1:11–18). Just as he “wrestled” and prayed for his own soul, he “struggled” for his kindred and his estranged brothers (Enos 1:10–11, 14).

Again, Enos, as a poetic Hebrew name, transparently denotes “man.” Enos introduces himself in his autobiography with the statement that his father was a “just man,” imitating the style of Nephi’s autobiographical self-introduction.3 He then recalls having a “wrestle . . . before God” (Enos 1:2), which recalls the mysterious “man” from Genesis 32 who “wrestled” Jacob.

In likening his ancestor Jacob’s “wrestle” at Peniel to himself, Enos (“man”) indicates that the “man”4 with whom he wrestles is himself. Perhaps, too, it suggests that the divine “man” ultimately prevails over the carnal natural “man.” It should also be remembered that the divine “man” of Genesis was the subject of the verb “wrestled” (wayyēʾābēq, Genesis 32:34), and Enos “had” the wrestle in Enos 1:2. Enos’s ancestor Jacob obtained the new name, Israel (“Let El contend” or “Let God prevail”), because he “ha[d] . . . power” or “had struggled [śāritā] with God and with men, and ha[d] prevailed” (Genesis 32:32). Jacob had “wrestled” and “struggled” with Esau, Laban, the divine “man,” and himself, but only truly “prevailed” when he “let God prevail.”5

In using the phrase “the wrestle which I had before God” (Enos 1:2), Jacob’s descendant, Enos, invokes the imagery of Genesis 32:24 and recreates wordplay that alludes to two geographical locations within the Jacob-Esau story: the river Jabbok (yabbōq), which sounds like the name Jacob (yaʿăqōb) and the word for “wrestle” (wayyēʾābēq), and Peniel/Penuel (“face of El”). The expression “before God”—lipnê ʾēl/lipnê ʾĕlōhîm—literally means “to the face of God.”6

In this research note, I will highlight a third instance in which Enos appears to make an additional subtle wordplay with a geographical reference within the Jacob-Esau story: in stating that he “went to hunt beasts in the forest[s],”7 Enos seemingly alludes to Seir, the forested interior of Edom, the land associated with Esau the hunter and his descendants.8 If so, Enos invokes the symbolic geography of Seir and its forested land as the home of Esau, who, like Enos later, was a famished hunter.

Esau: A Man Who Knows Hunting
and a Man of Seir/the Forest

Early in the narrative, the narrator sharply contrasts Esau and Jacob: “And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter [ʾîš yōdeaʿ ṣayid, a man knowing how to hunt], a man of the field [ʾîš śādeh]; and Jacob was a plain man [ʾîš tām], dwelling in tents” (Genesis 25:27). Later in the narrative, as Jacob prepares to obtain his father’s blessing (in accordance with the birthright that he has already obtained from Esau), he further establishes the contrast between Esau and himself. In this passage, the same phrase ʾîš tām is translated differently: “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man [ʾîš śāʿir], and I am a smooth man [ʾîš tām]” (Genesis 27:11). The phrase ʾîš śāʿir (“hairy man,” “goat-like man,” “man of Seir,” or “man of [forest] overgrowth”) directly plays on the toponym Seir, the land that will be inhabited by Esau and his descendants. (The two descriptions of Jacob as an ʾîš tām is something of a triple entendre: he is at once a simple man who dwells in a tent, a smooth man, and a man of integrity9 in contrast to his brother who is a rugged, goat-like man of the forest10).

The earlier geographical functions of the allusions in the narrative become clear in Genesis 32 as the narrative hastens to Jacob’s climactic “wrestle” with the divine “man” (ʾîš): “And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir [śēʿir], the country [field] of Edom [śĕdēh ʾĕdôm]” (Genesis 32:3). Translations like the KJV often obscure what the biblical writer is doing here. The narrator mentions Seir (śēʿir) and the field of Edom (śĕdēh ʾĕdôm). The reader, at this point in the narrative, will recall that Esau is the “man of Seir/the forest” (ʾîš śāʿir, Genesis 27:11) and “man of the field” (ʾîš śādeh, Genesis 25:27) who sold his birthright for “red” lentil stew (hāʾādōm hāʾādōm)—i.e., for Edom (ʾĕdôm).

The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is a very ancient Hebrew poem. It describes a theophany of Yahweh (Jehovah) coming from Seir in the land of Edom: “Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir [miśśēʿir], when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom [miśśĕdēh ʾĕdôm], the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water” (Judges 5:4). For Jacob, Esau’s coming from Seir was something like a theophany: “I have seen thy face [pānêkā], as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me” (Genesis 33:10). In other words, Esau (ʿēśāw) the brother and “man” before whom Jacob bowed after his “wrestle” with the divine “man” was like Enos’s “Maker” (ʿōśê).11 He was the brother-deity “before” (lipnê)12 whom Enos “wrestled” and “kneeled”—i.e., Jesus Christ. The narrator adds, “So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir” (Genesis 33:16).

Thomas Römer writes,

In Judges 5:4 Yhwh comes from the territory of Edom, which is put in parallel to Seir. The Hebrew word śēʿir means “hairy,” and when it is used as a geographic term, it refers to the interior territory of Edom, which was forested anciently. More particularly, Seir refers to the mountain that extends from Wadi el Ḥesa (the Zered of the Bible), marking the border with Moab, down to the gulf of Aqaba (Eilat), whereas “Edom” itself may designate a much larger territory covering a large part of the area south of the Negev.13

Lexicographers and Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner include the suggestion that Semitic “*šaʿar means thicket, or small wooded region.”14 All of the foregoing prepares us to appreciate the skill with which Enos adapts the onomastic fabric of the Jacob-Esau narrative, including his allusion to the rugged forested land of Seir, which becomes the home of Esau, to whom Enos draws distinctive autobiographical parallels.15

“I Went to Hunt Beasts in the Forest”: Enos, the Spiritually Famished Hunter and “Man” of the Forest

Enos, like Jacob his father, was a “wanderer,” exiled with his family from their homeland (Jerusalem), “born in tribulation . . . and hated of [his Lamanite] brethren” (compare Jacob 7:24). Like Esau, he was a famished hunter (compare Enos 1:4 with Genesis 25:27). Enos’s statement that his “soul hungered” can be understood both as physical, spiritual, or both since Hebrew nepeš (“soul”) as the “centre and transmitter of feelings and perceptions” can also denote “a longing, desire” or even to have physical “craving for something.”16 However, in the narrative context, Enos’s hunger was, above all, spiritual—a hunger of the inner man (compare Ephesians 3:16 and Moses 6:65). Like Jacob, he would not cease from his “wrestle” without obtaining a blessing (cf. Genesis 32:26). Enos records, “Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forest, and I remembered the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life and the joy of the saints, and the words of my father sunk deep into my heart” (Enos 1:3).17 Although living in the highlands of the land of Nephi, Enos’s “hunting beasts” places him in the symbolic geography of Esau—the forested land of “Seir,” the rugged overgrowth—engaging in the activity of Esau: hunting.

The narrator of Genesis states that when “Esau came from the field [min-haśśādeh] . . . he was faint” with physical hunger strong enough to overpower any value he placed on his birthright (Genesis 25:28–29; cf. when Esau “came in from his hunting [miṣṣêdô]” in Genesis 27:30). In contrast, Enos states that while he “went to hunt beasts in the forest,” his “soul hungered” (Enos 1:3–4), sufficient to be “blessed” in the way that his ancestor Jacob was “blessed” (compare Enos 1:5–8 with Genesis 27:1–30, 41; 32:26, 29). Like Esau, Enos was a “man of the forest”—or, “man of Seir” (cf. Genesis 27:11)—but he did not remain such. He was transformed into a new man and “made . . . whole” through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (see Enos 1:5–8).

Conclusion

Enos’s use of the Jacob-Esau cycle, as detailed here and in previous studies, demonstrates how closely ancient Israelite prophets read the writings of their predecessors and how much they cherished them. The story of Jacob and Esau was Enos’s story, though he lived half a world away from the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Enos had his own Jabbok, Peniel, and Seir.

If the observations here are valid, we can again discern Enos’s skillful use of the onomastic wordplay of Genesis, even down to the symbolic geography and meaning of Seir. This masterful use of the biblical narrative’s Hebrew elements stands as strong evidence of the book of Enos (and more broadly of the Book of Mormon) as ancient literature, rather than modern. As an adaptation of parts of the Jacob-Esau cycle, Enos’s short autobiography is one of the finest examples of “scripture’s use of scripture” in existence.

Matthew L. Bowen was raised in Orem, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and is currently an associate professor in religious education at Brigham Young University—Hawaii. He is also the author of Name as Key-Word: Collected Essays on Onomastic Wordplay and the Temple in Mormon Scripture (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2018) and Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon: Toward a Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2023). With Aaron P. Schade, he is the coauthor of The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021). He and his wife (the former Suzanne Blattberg) are the parents of three children: Zachariah, Nathan, and Adele.

1 . See especially John Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, “Jacob and Enos: Wrestling before God,” Insights 21, no.5 (2001): 2–3, archive.bookofmormoncentral.org
/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/farms-staff/2019-10-07/insights_21-5
_may_2001.pdf; Matthew L. Bowen, “‘And There Wrestled a Man with Him’ (Genesis 32:24): Enos’s Adaptations of the Onomastic Wordplay of Genesis,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 10 (2014): 151–60, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/and-there-wrestled-a-man-with-him
-genesis-3224-enoss-adaptations-of-the-onomastic-wordplay-of
-genesis/; Matthew L. Bowen, “‘I Kneeled Down Before My Maker’: Allusions to Esau in the Book of Enos,” Interpreter: A Journal Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 29–56, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/i-kneeled-down-before-my-maker
-allusions-to-esau-in-the-book-of-enos/. In my view, these studies sufficiently establish the intentionality of Enos’s literary adaptations, and I will proceed here under the assumption that this intentionality exists.

2 . Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 60; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2001) 70. Hereafter cited as HALOT.

3 . Matthew L. Bowen, “Wordplay on the Name Enos,” Insights 26, no.3 (2006): 2, scholarsarchive.byu.edu/insights/vol26/iss3/3/.

4 . ʾîš (“man”) is a synonym of ʾĕnôš (“man”), as is ʾādām (“man,” “humankind,” including the totality of humanity). Note the juxtaposition of Adam and Enos as the father and son of the patriarch Seth in the Genesis narratives. Adam is described as ʾîš in the etiology for Eve as “woman” (ʾiššâ): “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman [ʾiššâ], because she was taken out of Man [mēʾîš]. Therefore shall a man [ʾîš] leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife [bĕʾištô]: and they shall be one flesh.”

5 . Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Matthew L. Bowen, “Jacob’s Temple Journey to Haran and Back” in The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs (Proceedings of the Sixth Interpreter Foundation Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, 4–5 November 2022), ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. Temple on Mount Zion 7 (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2024), 171–254. On the importance of the connection between the name Israel and the concept “Let God Prevail,” see Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” Liahona, November 2020, 92–95, churchofjesuschrist.org/study
/general-conference/2020/10/46nelson.

6 . Tvedtnes and Roper (“Wrestling before God,” 2–3) first noted the connection between “before God” and Peniel.

7 . As Royal Skousen notes, “forests” should be singular, “forest.” The pluralization of the noun was introduced in the 1902 Latter-day Saint missionary edition of the Book of Mormon and has been retained ever since. See Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Two: 2 Nephi 11–Mosiah 16 (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2005), 1072–73, interpreterfoundation.org/books/atv/p2/. See also Royal Skousen, ed., The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 180.

8 . Esau and his descendants’ connection to “Mount Seir” is explicitly mentioned in Genesis 36:8–9; Deuteronomy 2:5, 8, 12, 22, 29; and Joshua 24:4, among other places.

9 . Noah and Job are described as men of integrity. See, e.g., Genesis 6:9 and Job 1:1, 8; 2:3.

10 . In this vein, it is interesting that Jacob’s wives have “cattle” names. Leah denotes “wild cow” and Rachel denotes “ewe-lamb.” Before the end of his record Enos mentions “goats” and “wild goats” among the animals that they herded (see Enos 1:21).

11 . Bowen, “I Kneeled Down Before My Maker,” 34–38.

12 . Compare again to the name Peniel or Penuel (“the face of God”).

13 . Thomas Römer, The Invention of God, trans. Raymond Geuss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 44. Emphasis added.

14 . Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 1342. They further note that “al-ʾAšʿaru ‘that which is overgrown’ is the name of a mountain in Arabia.”

15 . See Bowen, “I Kneeled Down Before My Maker,” 34.

16 . HALOT, 713.

17 . See Skousen, Earliest Text, 180.